Sports

Reed On Sports: Intercounty Baseball League invests in future

In 1919, Major League Baseball was deemed doomed, thanks to the fixing of the World Series. That was the year of the Black Sox Scandal involving eight members of the Chicago White Sox accused of throwing the Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

Also in 1919, the Intercounty Baseball League formed with charter clubs in Galt, Guelph, Kitchener and Stratford. The 1925 expansion club London Majors won the IBL championship.

With the IBL’s 100th year on deck, league commissioner John Kastner says he wants the loop to hit a home run during its centennial celebrations.

Since Kastner, 59, came on board as commissioner in October 2013, the IBL has done a good job in promoting its product. Kastner’s know-how has been invaluable. He also wears the hat of vice president of the Ontario Hockey Federation, and he’s a former Stratford Beacon Herald sports editor.

The league’s new anniversary logo will be on game balls used in 2018. Kitchener will host a February banquet where the IBL’s Top 100 players of the century will be announced. With Burlington Herd President Ryan Harrison heading the 100th year committee, long-time league statistician Herb Morell, as well as another former Beacon Herald sports editor, Steve Rice, are working with a formula to arrive at the Top 100 list.

“Each team can submit 15 names from 1955 to present,” Kastner explained. “Herb is researching prior to 1955, to include legends and players on teams that don’t exist anymore. We hope to have 400 people at the banquet, where we’ll also display artifacts and memorabilia.”

As was the case in the recent ranking of the London Majors’ all-time greatest players, listed at londonontariosports.com, star players who only had a cup of coffee in the IBL won’t be included among the Top 100, Kastner said.

“Many around Stratford will tell you Chris Speier was their best player ever, but he was only here for one year (in 1969),” Kastner said of the 19-year big-league shortstop.

The IBL hasn’t been without problems – not now, nor throughout its history. No league lasts 100 years without its ups and downs.

On June 21, the league announced that the Guelph Royals were ceasing operations while sitting in the IBL basement at 1-15. Defining the departure as a “leave of absence,” the IBL said the Rooney family ownership group would seek new buyers in hopes that the club would return in 2018. This was the first time in IBL history that a team folded like a cheap suitcase during a season.